Word of the Day: Brilliant

bril·liant

Relating to or being a hue that has a combination of high lightness and strong saturation.
Marked by unusual and impressive intellectual acuteness: a brilliant mind; a brilliant solution to the problem.

Notice: This entry was posted with the permission of my cubemate

I'm sure I've complained about the florescent light situation before on here, but it's just been taken to a whole new level. Previously, when the bulb were replaced overhead in our no-natural-light office, we just climbed up on our rolling chairs and unscrewed them. Problem solved. I've even signed a waiver stating that I asked the light-changer guy not to reinstall new ones. Last week we received a notice that we were no longer to mess with the lights and if we were caught we'd be reprimanded. The only way to get any attention regarding the lighting situation was to get a doctor's note. Okay, fine. They win. I know defeat when I see it. I won't mess with the lights anymore.

But then came the day when they screwed back in all our lights. Let me tell you, that was a scary, scary sight. I saw my coworkers in a new light. It was like that Seinfeld epidode where Kramer overbakes himself on the roof with the butter. "Look away, I'm hideous!"

A major controversy started yesterday when my cubemate fashioned a piece of cardboard, rigged with office supplies (including, but not limited to, paperclips, picture hooks, cable and duct tape) to cover the light. And while that's all good and fun, the office directors were all in a meeting while he did it. When they came back and saw the make-shift light blocker, they were slightly displeased. They attempted, in a diplomatic way, to get him to remove it. No dice. He left it up until the last possible moment, which just happens to be this morning.

Imagine the light given off by a regular household 100wt bulb (for reference, the bulbs I just replaced in my house are 60wt). We're talking the strength of 30 100wt bulbs. It's enough light to fully illuminate the Dulles International Airport runway. I'm blinded by the light, but at least I share my misery with my good old cubemate. Right? But oh, wait, there's more to this story. He took down the blocker only after finding out that they're moving him out of our cube and into his own office. OFFICE!

The moral of the story is, if you complain loud enough and hang an illegal piece of cardboard from the ceiling, you get REWARDED for it. Now that takes BRILLIANT to a new level.